Arts and Humanities Commons^™

If This Heart Had A Mouth: A Forbidden Romance Narrated Through Mimesis: Poems, Julieta V. Corpus

Theses and Dissertations

If This Heart Had a Mouth consists of forty-two poems where love is the catalyst for a multitude of emotions, ranging from falling in love, to hopelessness, to a begrudging kind of acceptance at losing the beloved to somebody else. To create all forty-two poems, 23 written in Spanish, and 19 poems written in English, I employed the literary device called Mimesis which entails deriving an original poem from someone else's work.

To create each poem, I followed another poet’s original work, line by line. I imitated that poet’s rhythm through their use of meter. I counted the number of …

The Artists Journey- Strolling The Edges Of The Universe, Mary P. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Space exploration has always fascinated me, and so has the idea ( so far fictional) that humankind may someday encounter extraterrestrial life. My series of paintings and prints are a visual expression of the awe and wonder I feel as I follow our species’s unending drive to expand the boundaries of its known world.

But the unknown is not just out there in interstellar space. And there are other lifeforms to encounter right here on our own planet. Another series of my paintings documents Earth’s flora. Our ties to the microorganisms, animals, and plants on our planet, and the life …

Love Sex God, Magdiel G. Alfonso

Theses and Dissertations

As a result of the absence of a father-figure and the repulsion of machismo, a love for that masculinity and a void within grew from the missing father-son/male-male interaction; this is the drive to codify my work with homoerotic imagery bathed with guilty religiosity through a torturous sadomasochist context to display a life-mirrored desire to punish and love the male simultaneously while feeling guilty doing it. The work is inspired by homoerotic and religious art history and at times the blending of the two.

The purpose of this work is not only to show the love for the celebration of …

Boricua Type: Intersectional Hybrid Transcultural Art Concepts And Illustrations, Isaac Santiago

Theses and Dissertations

The concepts and artworks contained in this thesis embodies most of the research that I did in and outside the University. My particular experiences as a Puerto Rican, born and raised, and as a migrant artist in Mexico and Texas. Most of the research was made by trail and error independently or with little to no guidance. In conclusion I found my artistic self: technically, personally, and reached a high level of commitment to our community as a prepared professional.

From A Long Line Of Thieves, Lucinda Zamora-Wiley

Theses and Dissertations

This is a work of original creative writing, containing works of poetry, prose poems, flash non-fiction, and personal essays. The primary subject areas include family relations after PTSD, love, interracial struggles within marriage and family, pride of place--including Texas and the United States, and poetic/artistic inspirations that influenced the author.

El Son De "El Cuervo": The Transformation Of Armonía Practice In The Mariachi Tradition, Adolfo Estrada Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

In mariachi scholarship to date, armonía practices are often overlooked. The armonía instruments provide essential rhythmic and harmonic support, yet their specific practices are assumed to be invariable. Close analysis suggests a more complex story. This work provides an analysis of the armonía within the son jalisciense song form in particular, by comparing several performances of the popular son jalisciense song “El Cuervo ” (The Crow). Analysis reveals that the armonía underwent a homogenization process before arriving at present-day practices, and I argue that the 1965 Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán recording is the point of homogenization on which future …

Smoked Blood And Lavender, Diana L. Elizondo

Theses and Dissertations

My project is a demonstration of how the Gothic genre can still have an influence in contemporary poetry as well as how the traditional forms can still be effective when developing diction and originality. This project is a collection of poems that addresses a range of issues in society and politics, as well as the deconstruction of the notions of romance in everyday life. In the introduction to my thesis, my poems are analyzed stylistically, as well as the themes they represent and the sources that influenced them. Furthermore, my poems are divided in five sections and each focuses on …

Cuentos De Verano Antología De Cuentos, Mayra C. Mancera

Theses and Dissertations

La presente es una colección de seis cuentos de mi autoría compilados para mi Tesis de grado Máster de Literatura y Lingüística con concentración en Escritura Creativa. Los cuentos, escritos con la voz narrativa omnisciente, son clásicos, realistas; de carácter didáctico ya que en ellos se encuentra una enseñanza aleccionadora, moralizante, en la que se destacan los valores universales. Los relatos se desarrollan en pequeñas comunidades: pueblos, comarcas, aldeas, sin especificar un lugar específico ni fecha determinada donde se realizan las acciones. La temática escudriña la naturaleza humana ante situaciones reales: la búsqueda de una razón de vivir; el dolor …

The Fallen Female: A Testimony, Husney Farwa Naqvi

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a collection of thematically related nonfiction works that offers a cultural critique of the author’s three cultures – Pakistani, American, and Muslim – through a feminist lens. The author attempts to offer an intersectional feminist’s insight based on her lived experiences as a Pakistani American woman – born in Karachi, raised in Louisiana and the Rio Grande Valley in Deep South Texas. It explores feminist theory, focusing heavily on rape culture (“Shame and Regrets,” “Bollywood’s Rape Fetish”) and religious influences (“Infallible,” “The Hijab”). It also details the author’s experience as a Muslim woman who chose to observe …

The Canción Cannibal Cabaret And Other Songs: Feminists Of A Dystopian Future Repurpose A Punk Past, Amalia L. Ortiz

Theses and Dissertations

This collection of poem-songs is an experiment in combining poetry and theatre. Focused on the theme of revolution and inspired by current issues of social justice, the manuscript is set in a not-so-distant future. After an environmental apocalypse, a refugee raised under an oppressive state, La Madre Valiente studies secretly to become the leader of a feminist revolution. Her emissaries roam the land telling her story, educating others, and enlisting allies in revolution. My goal is to transform the text into live theatrical performances so that the manuscript serves both as a poetry collection and as a script. Some critics …

Coming Of Age On Social Media: Platforms For Discussion And Critique On The Novels Of Sarah Dessen, Liza M. Soria

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the way Tumblr and Twitter users converse about a variety of topics in Sarah Dessen’s novels, not predominantly focused on romance. From 2006 to 2016, tweets and blog posts across Tumblr and Twitter platforms have responded to the twelve novels written by Dessen from 1996 to 2015. Incorporating recent social media commentary on a variety of topics within her first six novels from That Summer (1996) to The Truth About Forever (2004) demonstrates how Dessen’s early novels appeals to readers currently on Twitter and Tumblr. In the last decade of Dessen’s writing career, from Just Listen (2006) …

Añoranza, Victor H. Tijerina

Theses and Dissertations

El objetivo del presente trabajo constituye esta compilación de cuarenta y ocho poemas, la cual lleva por nombre Añoranza, tiene como uno de los principales objetivos invitar al lector a introducirse a la lectura y hacerlo partícipe de ella, y con ello acercar al individuo con los diferentes sujetos, y los cuadros de imágenes que aparecen a lo largo de la colección. Se indicaran algunas influencias de algunos poetas vanguardistas que repercutieron ciertamente en el desarrollo de los poemas. Para contrastar, se presenta la filosofía platónica sobre lo que el filósofo griego considera buena y mala poesía. Del Quijotes resaltan …

You Either Laugh Or Cry, Laura Espinoza

Theses and Dissertations

You Either Laugh or Cry is a collection of bilingual flash non-fiction stories. Through the use of language the writer has employed code switching and humor to retell memories of her of childhood through young adulthood. Although the collection includes various members of the writer’s family, the short-shorts mainly focus on the mother-daughter relationship.

Save My Sins For Sunday, Gabriel Leal

Theses and Dissertations

This is a collection of poetry that depicts the struggles of family separation, to the street and drug life, to the questioning of faith and religion, to the revelation that education was the only means of escape. Set in the Rio Grande Valley, this collection allows the reader to travel though the rough streets of South Texas where anger, pain, and joy coincide. Embedded in a Tex-Mex voice, I take you through my experiences that allowed me to see that there was no future for me in the streets and that I would rather be institutionalized by universities, rather than …